Stephen Bayliss's Blog

There is not quite this much snow today. A few more months until Leysin looks like this:)

I am currently sitting on our balcony looking at some fresh snow that fell last night on top of the mountains. It looks like a bit of icing sugar has been spinkled on top. I think it has been done just for the decoration:)

All is well in Camp Leysin, lots of good training has been done by all. Lots of good racing too!

The high season for tourism has finished here now, so it is a bit less busy, but also it means the PamPam(our closest super market) shuts at lunch time and on Sundays so we have to remember this;)

It feels like winter today in Leysin but I think there is still plenty of the summer left. I hope so anyway. Lots more training and racing to do before the year is out:)

Oh as I speak some very handsome cows have just been hearded past our building, I like seeing the animals around here. On the way up the hill to Leysin, I see lots of different animals. Occasionally on the train up I see a mountain goat. From the road I see; dear, donkeys, cows, sheep, a sheep dog that looks like a sheep(there is a sign on the fence explaining what a special dog he is), horses, eagles, very occasionally a black squirrel(it is probably not a squirrel but looks like one), that is all I can think off at the moment, I’m sure there is more species that I have forgot about.

This is at the top of the mountain at the Berneuse restaraunt. Magnificent views. My brother is in the background climbing up Mont Blanc, I'm serious, he is. I think he gets to the summit tomorrow.

I used to do alot of mountainbiking.  I have even won a few mtb races when I was a youngerster.   Although I haven’t ridden a MTB for quite a long time and at first it did feel very different and took a while to get used to it again,  but it was great fun. 

I loved it but honestly all my MTB skills seem to have dissapeared!  Then again having the brakes the wrong way round and the bike was a bit of a rattler,  all didn’t help.  That’s my excuse any way.

So  Bella and I decided to have an easy ride to the top of the mountain here in
Leysin,  then race back down to home.  I decided to take the blue run, which I thought was tricky enough,  the red run is a bit trickier with some pretty mean wodden  jumps built along the route.  I thought I better give that a miss this first time:)  Bella did very well having never really ridden off road before.

On the way to the top.

What a great triathlon Embrunman is. The winner is always a very good triathlete. Well done to Marcel Zamora Perez showing what a strong triathlete he is but also well done to James for pushing him all the way.

My race: I had a fine swim coming out in the front group and then struggled up the first climb but came over the top with James and some others. James set a good pace and we caught back up to Faure and Zamora before the start proper of the Col d izord. I seemed to lose all my strength and really struggled all the way up the Col. I was then on my own for the next 90km all the way to the end of the bike.

I think I was in 8th at the end of the bike, but with a big gap to all the others in front.

I ran the best I could and managed to cross the finish line in 5th place.

And so I get a nice pay check and had a great days training in the french alps.

Team TBB had an interesting time in Embrun once again. Well done to Tereza on her win, and to Bella for pushing on when she is not in the shape she has been before at this race and so has to deal with not being as fast as she was but she still carries on and gets something for her days work. She will be back to her best before the year is out:) Well done to Scott on 7th and Brandon for getting the Embrunman experience.

Back home to leysin now and to prepare for Hawaii in 7weeks time.

Bella and I headed back to the UK late last week and got to the sports complex here in Leigh near Bolton, we checked out the course and got ourselves organised for the race.

The lake was not as cold as last year so that was nice:)  I had a good start and was next to Fraser he then took the lead and I followed behind him,  he swam a very good pace,  Axel Zeebroek was behind me and Brandon behind him. Out of the swim and Fraser legged it too transition I managed to catch him with a quick wetsuit strip and we headed out onto the bike with a 30sec gap to Axel behind. After about 30km Fraser put in a really good surge on the back section of the course and left me. Axel caught back up to me and we stayed together until the end of the bike.  We were getting some splits ocasionally on the bike, Fraser had opened up about 6mins by just over half way but we managed to keep the gap to 6mins 40sec at the end of the bike. Onto the run and my plan was to try and catch Fraser, I started solidliy and so did Axel and we ran side by side, at the turn around in Bolton we got a split of 7mins, arrgh! So I pushed on and Axel then styed behind me till the Last turnaround, with 12km to go the split was 6mins 30sec, arrgh, I kept pushing and dropped Axel but knew Fraser would probably have to really start to struggele for me to catch him. I finished in 2nd, 6min 1sec behind Fraser.

Big congratulations to Fraser he really was the best athlete on Sunday and did a very fine job. I gave it all I had and wasn’t able to match him. Next time I will be stronger though;)

I am looking forward to Ironman UK on the 1st August.  This will be the 5th time I have raced IMUK, I have only missed one of the IMUK’s since they started.

It is now in Bolton instead of Sherbourne, but it is a good challenging coures, the weather could do anything, but the lake is sure to be cold, UK lake s are always cold:)

Training has been going well and I will be giving it my all as always.

In the pool. Actually this is a picture that Daniel took of me in the winter. But I look the same now:) So I thought it was still relevant;)

I’m pretty pissed with the race to be honest. Not especially with my performance, although I didn’t do great especially the run where I lost alot of time due to lack of calories.

No my problem is the 8% rule, I was just outside the 8% of Marino. I entered the race knowing this rule, and didn’expect it to be an issue, but I have said when I heard of this rule how ridiculous I think it is.

Anyway from myself in 6th place to 10th place we won’t be getting any prize money for our efforts on Sunday. I think it is a disgrace not to pay us. We busted our balls, sometimes one doesn’t have great days but along with the others in the top 10 who won’t be getting their prize money, we gave our all out there, the few hundred dollars(yeah alot isn’t it!) would bloody help in this sport.

Well my race started well, although there was a fast swimmer who I was behind at who it appears had arranged with the organisers to be towed by the lead canoe! It was literally right in front of him the whole way!! Apparently they wanted a swimming record or something, I mean what is that about! Without the canoe maybe I would have kept up with him. We had a gap to the rest but once I lost his feet I then got caught by the guys behind then just lead them around the whole swim, that was kind of me ay;)

Then the bike, none of us could go with Marino’s pace so he just went and we did our best and the 3 of us came off the bike in 4:35 and I felt ready to run.

So as you would have gathered by now the run didn’t go to plan and I ran an unimpressive 3:04 and was 1min out side 8% of Marino and knew it at the finish and was rightly pissed off!

P Diddy nearly bought the Palace!

Before I talk about the World Cup, I would like to reasure all of you that are worrying about Croydon’s greatest football team, Crystal Palace, that it looks like they will survice, well hopefully anyway! P Diddy was rumured to be buying them but instead a group of Croydon buisness men will be buying them, hopefully!

Well what about England in the World Cup? They offered glimers of excellence in there 4 matches they played, but unfortunately mostly they offered thoroughly uninspiring and very poor football.

When I watched some of the other mathches, for instance Argentina against Mexico, compared to England we looked completely usless, Argentina were fast, skillfull, adventurous, passionate and determined, I think they will do very well in this World Cup, if they don’t let in too many goals!

Along with the rest of England, Bella and I(even though Bella is Scottish, she pretends to support England when we watch together:)) have been debating why England did so poorly. Is it the managers fault? The players fault? Engalnd FA’s fault? FIFA’s fault(amazing there is no goal line technology, it must be too expensive for FIFA?!)?

So my conclusion is most of our team aren’t in the same league as most of the Spanish, Brazilians, Argentinians players. However France and Italy didn’t do well either so maybe it isn’t the players. I think Capello didn’t do a great job, surely given that they have so little time to prepare for a World cup, the players should be playing in a similar position and system as they are used to in the Premiership.

Anyway here is my answer, the English FA should start an English team for the Priemiership, and it can have a big budget as they can afford it, and the team at the start of the year is the team that plays in the World or European Cup. I am sure there are lots of reasons why this can’t happen, but if England are serious about winning the World Cup then why not do this?

(edit: my pictures don’t like uploading at the connection here at the swimming pool:( I will try again later,  it is a picture of us all on Aberdeen beach, you will have to use your imagination,  the weather was loverly and the beach looked beautifull but the sea was cold.)

Last week Bella and I had a short trip up to Aberdeen after 70.3 UK and had a great time with the family:) Then back to Leysin, the weather here is just as in the UK at the moment and is absolutely perefct, there is no where in the world as beautiful as Leysin, especially when the sun is shinning.

(edit: another picture supposed to be here,  of me in Leysin)

This week Bella and I head down to Klagenfurt in Austria for the Ironman on Sunday, it is another beautiful part of the world, a lovely course and we will both be doing our very best and fighting it out with the rest of the competitors on Sunday.

This is actually finishing in the 2009 UK 70.3, this year I had a bit of afro on my head.

No, not that funky music funk.  I get that everynow and then but at the moment I am in a funk.

You may have noticed from my results of late that my bike and I have not been getting along brilliantly.

I am going to be spending lots of time together with my bike and we are going to become the best of friends over the next few weeks.

Things will be different come IMUK.  I wil be strong and ready to go.

This last Sundays 70.3 UK was a big dissapointment for me.  My performance, was a way off the last 2 years and so I need to get to work on fixing that.

Bella showed how it is done, no overthinking,  just getting on with the hard work and then doing the buisness on race day.

Coming out of the swim in Leybourne lake.

I did the  tri grand prix race down in Kent on Sunday,  I was up the front on the swim and came out in the first pack and with a black eye!  On the bike and run I didn’t have the legs I needed and finished up in around 10th (I don’t know the exact results yet).  It was a good workout, that is about all I got out of this one.  The lake was nice, but quite cool, I wore a silcone cap, a neoprene cap and and the orange race cap over the top to keep warm.  The roads were very bumpy and extremely busy, onto the run and it was an interesting run course, quite alot of people out doing their Sunday thing; walking dogs, feeding the ducks, riding bikes, doing the shopping all on the run course.  I believe Nick Saunders got abused buy some local youths, who told him to “run forest run”,  he said “oi your the one that needs to do some running fatso”

Coming out of transition.

This week we have been in Croydon(well actually near Croydon, my parents don’t quite live in Croydon anymore!)  It is always great to be back,  but it is amazing how busy the roads are, all the time!  And wow,  the pot holes,  they are everywhere!  The roads are really bad at the moment.

Oh no!  The Eagles are in trouble!  Yes I am very sorry to say that Crystal Palace Football club are on the verge of dissapearing completely!  They need to pay the administrators but can’t and so might go into liquidation.  I really hope that the football club can survive.